Re: "Print on demand" and "Docutech"

["Susan W. Gallagher" <susan-gallagher -at- vertel -dot- com>]

It's been several years since my words hit paper, but I have a
couple of thoughs to add to the discussion.

>There are color Docutechs, but I don't believe they can print on
>cover-weight stock, so if you bind your docs in covers, you'll
>need to have (larger runs of) covers printed the traditional way
>and store what you don't use immediately.

We had the color artwork for the cover offset printed in a large
run, then had the specific product name, version number, etc.
printed in black and varnished at the time of the print run.


>Con:  In the projects I was involved with, the Docutech output
>was slightly different from the original documents because the
>fonts used by the Docutech were ever-so-slightly different from
>their counterparts in the original FrameMaker and Word files.
>This led to such problems as poor letter- and word-spacing
>(especially with display fonts) and wrong line- and page-breaks,
>which made a mockery of the time I had spent creating careful
>breaks.

I supplied the true-type fonts I used in the docs to my docutech 
company. They supplied the docutech printer driver to use. I
always "copied" the .ps file to the printer to proof it before
I sent it off and *always* got a cut proof back from the print
shop before they did the run so I could correct pagination errors
and catch other goofs before production. It's also possible to
tell them to "nudge" the text one way or another on a page.

It's also possible, for example, to provide portrait pages with
just header and footer on them and a landscape table and let the
print shop marry the two together. Finding a good docutech print
shop and developing a good relationship with the operator can be
a great asset! 

HTH!


-Sue Gallagher               http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/
susan-gallagher -at- vertel -dot- com   http://www.vertel.com

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